Already Over
by RogueSama
Summary: It made him afraid for some reason that Naruto hadn't even said a word, just sat there stunned as if not quite believing or maybe just now processing the fact that this was really happening. -Time Travel-
1. Pieces

Edited by the epic betas MsBenzedrine and Cereal-Killa

**Chapter 1  
>~Pieces~<strong>

"_I tried so hard  
>Thought I could do this on my own<br>I've lost so much along the way__"_

Bright orange and yellow clouds drifted overhead, witnessing the sun disappearing and hiding itself from the fights below. The clanking sound of kunai bouncing off each other and the harsh breathing of the two combatants was all that could be heard.

They had long since given up on words, and now both of their stamina was nearing its end.

In a moment they separated from each other, cerulean eyes met Sharingan crimson red ones, traversing the space between them as if it didn't exist.

Those blue eyes stared at their opponent reflecting their owner's reluctance to continue on this way. Naruto never having thought the situation could come to this.

Those crimson eyes stared back full of anger, pain, and… regret.

Was it only his imagination or was his enemy, his friend, as tired as the blonde felt? He wondered why the raven-haired adolescent did not use _Mangekyō Sharingan_ of his to finish the fight.

Naruto watched, exhausted, as Sasuke smirked and just like that he could see the feint shadow his old comrade in the borderline insane man standing before him.

"Sasuke?" Naruto whispered, even while knowing the teen would not hear him from this distance. His hands moved down to grasp his suddenly aching chest.

"The _Shadow Clone Technique_." Sasuke stated evenly, having made a one earlier. There was an almost perfect irony in finishing his long time adversary off with his rival's favourite technique. "I've seen you use it enough times to have copied it even without the Sharingan's help," Sasuke explained in a flat voice. "I can make several now but one is all I will need."

"Why?" Naruto asked, his shirt slowly turning red. His knees gave way involuntarily and he hit the ground hard, falling on his side to watch his friend closing the distance between them. He knew that it was not an immediately life threatening strike, although if he did something to make it worse than it would easily become one.

With the Kyuubi sealed into him it would take a lot more to finish the blonde shinobi off. This was why he had offered to be the bait that would draw the trap closed, not wanting to risk losing anyone else again.

Black eyes flickered in surprise as Sasuke _(Note: It has to be clear who exactly is doing what)_ turned around to face what he hadn't noticed. A chidori, the move that Sasuke had tried so hard to learn once upon a time, slid into his chest. The face of his once sensei hovered behind his shoulder.

He hadn't even had time to turn around to face the attack. Sasuke stared at Naruto as Sakura knelt beside him, pulling the kunai out of his chest as Kyuubi healed him and she helped. They had both grown so much since he had abandoned them, just as Itachi had abandoned him, or so he thought. But truthfully, after Itachi, he had always just been waiting for them to be strong enough.

A true smile stretched briefly across Sasuke's face, although nobody but Naruto noticed it. "D-Dobe, I suppose this is goodbye," he said, watching Sakura pause in her treatment to stare at him.

She was crying, Sasuke noticed, as she had been the day he left to join Orochimaru. That was okay, since she would eventually move on. Even though her teal eyes were wide with shock and pain now, even though her hands were trembling at her sides, she would grow stronger still and eventually… she would forget all about him.

Sasuke's eyes closed and for a moment the pair watching thought he might be dead already. Then they opened once again and they were not the red eyes of a Sharingan-user but the natural black of Uchiha Sasuke, team 7.

"You'll make… a great Hokage… one day, Na…ruto," Sasuke said, his voice already failing him. He guessed that Naruto couldn't have heard what he had said. His anger drained away even as the warmth of his dying body dissipated. "Sensei, make sure… that Naruto knows…" His voice failed as Sasuke Uchiha became no more than deadweight held up by the Jounin's hand still buried inside him and the other hand on his shoulder.

Kakashi gently lowered the body to the ground, knowing that while his former student, now being deceased, may be beyond caring Sakura and especially Naruto were not.

Kakashi himself had seen so much death growing up that he no longer had tears to cry. Instead, he bowed his head in respect and grievance. He looked up after a while, slipping his forehead-protectordown to cover his own Sharingan that he hadn't even used. He suspected that this bloodline was one the rest of the group would not want to see or hear about for a long time.

Sakura reached her fallen comrade with much stumbling in order to grieve. "Sasuke, you idiot!" she screamed, "Why did it have to be this way?" She went on for a long while, before Kakashi noticed something.

Naruto had not moved.

It made him afraid for some reason that Naruto had not even said a word, just sat there stunned as if not quite believing or maybe just now processing the fact Sasuke was gone for good.

The two rivals would never have another battle against each other again.

Team seven was broken irreversibly this time.


	2. Lost

Edited by the epic beta MsBenzedrine (thank you)

Also, you may want to re-read the intro since I have changed some things very slightly.

**Chapter 2  
>~Lost~<strong>

"_Your whispers fill these empty halls  
>I'm searching for you as you call<br>I'm racing, chasing after you…"_

Team Seven, or what remained of it, stood in front of the Konoha gates where the Konoha Eleven and their respective teachers had come to wait for them. Hokage Tsunade was also there waiting, although she had refused to let anyone else come.

Kakashi and Sakura traveled in front with Sai in the rear. Naruto was between his teammates carrying the body of the Uchiha. He had refused to let anyone else touch Sasuke, even Kakashi had been denied, after he had found out they had betrayed him.

There was never any intention of letting Sasuke come back after what he had done. It had been an assassination mission from the start and he was the only one who had not known.

He was the only person who apparently cared about Sasuke.

Naruto hadn't said anything since he had yelled at Kakashi after learning their true mission's purpose earlier.

"You didn't need to bring the body back, brat. We would have believed you without the proof." Tsunade didn't realize until after she had spoken how callous her words might come across as.

Several of the shinobi knew better and wondered what that slip of the tongue might mean to Naruto. They knew Tsunade never meant it that way, but that was probably how he would take it and they were not proven wrong either.

Naruto stopped walking, his head down so his hair covered his now blood red eyes. Those who had gathered didn't need to see his eyes though to know how upset he was, being able to feel the kyuubi's chakra leaking out of the boy, but the killer intent was unmistakably that of Uzumaki Naruto.

"Is that all you care about Tsunade-sama?" Naruto asked his voice almost a growl. His anger was obvious when he refused to use his usual nickname for her, making the choice in honorific seem almost insulting by comparison.

Tsunade realized her mistake too late, though her eyes softened in something akin to pity. She too had lost people who were close to her, such was the life of a Shinobi.

_Naruto won't be able to put up with this for much longer,_ Sakura thought, looking behind her at her teammate with worry. "Naruto, I know why you're upset but it had to be done. Sasuke turned his back on this village and team seven. He even joined Orochimaru and later Madara in several attempts to kill people in this village and you specifically. In short he was a traitor."

Naruto's body stiffened in rage,"Sasuke is my friend, my comrade and you can't even–"

"Naruto," Kakashi interrupted, "do you understand why this had to be done?"

"There had to be a different way," Naruto shot back stubbornly.

"There was no other way. He was a threat and he was eliminated." Sai said this in an as close to an understanding voice he could manage, although it just came out as sounding cold. Like he was merely pointing out what should be an obvious fact.

"He betrayed the village, he hurt you and team 7, why do you continue to defend him!" Kiba yelled at him, not liking how depressed his friend was getting. It disturbed him that Naruto would act so unlike himself.

"Kiba!" His teammates exclaimed simultaneously, astounded that he could be so tactless.

"How can you call him a _friend_ even now?" Kiba continued, a bit more subdued, as if finally realizing how thin Naruto's control was at the moment.

"If it would have saved him, I would have done whatever it would have taken," Naruto stated in a strained voice. "But it's too late now, isn't it?" he said in a tone stating clearly that he felt they were responsible.

"Naruto, as a traitor, I'm afraid Sasuke won't be able to be buried in a marked grave with the rest of the fallen shinobi." Tsunade stated, decided she might as well say everything right now

"He was a Konoha-nin, so why the hell not!" Naruto yelled back, his body trembling in anger as he stared defiantly around the room.

"Troublesome," a familiar voice spoke up. "Naruto, it's _because_ he is considered a traitor that he cannot be buried like the others who have done their duty," Shikamaru stated with a sigh, playing with Asuma's lighter again. On and off he flicked the wheel, watching the flame rather than Naruto who he had in some ways grown to respect.

Shikamaru knew exactly what he had emplied with that last statement but knew also that it had to be said anyway.

"What do you… mean, Shikamaru? I don't understand." Naruto's anger had disappeared along with any trace of the demon fox. The only thing left was the confused boy who just wanted someone to tell him why it all had to be this way.

Kakashi sighed, having followed Shikamaru's logic easily. He had known this was how it would be, but he hadn't had the heart to say so.

Ino continued her teammate's line of reasoning for Naruto, "Sasuke-kun neglected that duty that all shinobi have vowed their life to. It had been his choices that forced Hokage and your teammates to make such a harsh decision, but that was their choice."

"At least you tried as best you could, nobody can say otherwise." Kakashi stated quietly as if it might change things if Naruto only knew that 'he had tried his best'.

"But I didn't try hard enough." Naruto whispered, that final sentence dropping him to his knees, still clutching Sasuke.

"Sasuke…" Naruto's voice breaking while his team stood frozen in shock. Naruto never cried. Not when Kakashi had died fighting Pein or even when the village had been virtually destroyed.

"Naruto, let go now," Shikamaru muttered, quietly approaching the boy and kneeling down beside him.

Naruto looked up at Shikamaru and absent-mindedly he noticed that almost everyone else who had been waiting had left, the only team left beside his was team Asuma. "I can't."

They knew he wasn't talking about giving up Sasuke's body, but of giving up his memories and what could have been. In the end, he let Kakashi take Sasuke away from him though his eyes never stopped watching.

"Naruto, you need to move," Sakura mumbled quietly, pulling her friend up with Shikamaru's help.

Naruto was deadweight for moment, before deciding he wanted to leave. He didn't want those pity-filled looks directed at him. He couldn't stand them anymore.

The blonde suddenly started to run, not paying attention to where he was headed until he found himself at home where he collapsed on the bed without bothering to change from his bloodied clothes.

It didn't matter anymore.

He grabbed the picture of old team 7 and just stared at it. He stared at someone who just couldn't be him glaring at Sasuke and Kakashi messing up both their hair. He glanced at Sakura between them, smiling for the camera, much more naive and happy than she was now, seeming as if she didn't have a care in the world.

He could hear what sounded like Iruka and Kakashi at his door, probably checking up on him. Naruto then lowered his hand that held the picture. When it started to slip out of his fingers, he let it, hearing the glass of the frame smash on the floor.

The voices outside his door finally silenced and he thought they had left. But they hadn't unfortunately for him.

"Naruto?" Iruka-Sensei asked. "Let's go out for ramen, Kakashi's treat!" he called, trying to interest the teen and worrying about whatever had broken.

"Come on Naruto-kun, open the door," Kakashi asked, almost pleaded the silent boy.

Naruto ignored them. They would give up eventually anyway, or so he figured.

What seemed like only a few minutes later, he heard the voices start up again, talking to each other this time.

"Perhaps he's just not ready yet." That, Naruto knew was Kakashi speaking.

"Yes, well, I'm worried about him. He didn't even act this way when Jiraiya-sama…" That was Iruka talking again.

For a moment he felt guilty for making his friends and family worry about him, but then he recalled how little they seemed to have cared about Sasuke. He had seen those looks when the others didn't think he was looking. They were the same looks that people used to give _him_ when he was nothing more than the kyuubi brat.

Only this time they had directed those looks at Sasuke and there even seemed to be an additional layer of contempt toward the dead boy.

He just didn't understand why, falling asleep after a while of thinking about it.

–––––––––––––

Kyuubi let some more of his chakra leak out of the cage. He was trapped there, but the Fourth Hokage's seal allowed his chakra to pass in the hopes that the blonde would one day be able to control some of it. Now that the boy was asleep, he could use more without attracting too much attention.

Red chakra slowly licked at the seal. Not the one on his cage of course, since he knew there was no breaking that one from within. Instead it was the one that sealed off a part of the boy's memory. Since he was the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox, such simple seals couldn't hold him back for very long and he _really_ wanted to break this seal.

Not because he cared for the boy, but because it would get very boring if he never left his room again and he would be stuck in the brat until his container died. Which would be a long time if the blonde brat never took another mission again.

The fox's grin widened as he felt the memory seal beginning to fracture beneath the pressure of his magnificent amount of chakra.


End file.
